The Single Dad Arrangement

by Wylder, Penny

  I don’t like where this is heading. Not at all. But I feel trapped in here, in this glass-walled office that everyone else in the company can see straight into. I just gave up Killian for my career. Can I really turn around and walk away now, just because I feel uncomfortable? “Wh-with what?” I manage.

  “I want custody of my daughter. Full time. Killian stole her from me, and I want to make him pay, the way he’s made me suffer.” Tricia stands slowly, fists balled, her jaw clenched. But her fury isn’t directed at me. I realize that now. She’s staring at a photograph on her desk, and if I lean forward, I can see from the reflection in the glass behind her what it’s a picture of. It’s her and Killian, with Lina cradled between them, probably a year old, maybe less.

  “I want him to feel as depressed and worthless and cruel as he made me feel. I want him to know what it’s like to lose your daughter, to lose your partner, to lose everything you have in the world.” Her voice rises higher, and I cringe involuntarily back against the door. The motion catches her eye, and she glances at me, relaxing her shoulders a little. Then she runs a hand through her hair and sighs, shaking her head. “You don’t know what it’s been like…” Her voice cracks, and for a moment, I glimpse the real Tricia through that angry façade. The sad, broken woman underneath.

  “Tricia…” I walk toward her, but she abruptly straightens and waves me off.

  “So I need your help,” she tells me, tears shining in her eyes. “Will you do it?”

  I clear my throat to buy myself time. I never asked Killian about his past—I never wanted to know. I figured we were both better off with a clean slate. But now… “What did he do that was so bad?” I ask. “To deserve so much anger?”

  The pain darts across her face again, followed hard on its heels by anger. “He should have just forgiven me. All I asked for was a little understanding, a little leeway. Was that too much to ask for from my partner? My husband?” She shakes her head, scowling. “But no, he had to make it about him. Poor Killian. He was always blaming me for everything, like he never made mistakes, like he shat gold bricks.”

  “Forgive you for what?” I ask, watching her closely. “I still don’t understand what happened. Did you do something, see someone else?”

  Now she looks up, and her gaze sharpens when it finds mine. Damn. I’ve crossed a line. “Why do you care?” she spits. “It’s none of your business. And it shouldn’t matter to you what went on in the past. You’re here because you care about your future, right?” As she speaks, she builds back up that professional demeanor, the one she always wears. I understand now why she’s so obsessed with appearances, why she remains professional at all times, why she makes us all take so much training on how to be buttoned up and 100% about our careers like she is.

  It’s because she’s trying to ignore everything else going wrong in her life. To focus on this one area where she excels.

  “You want your book career, Tilly, don’t you?” she’s saying. She searches my eyes. “Then I need you to decide. Right now, right here. Decide what matters more to you. Some random older man who flirted with you inappropriately while you were on the job, or your future. Your career. The goal you’ve strived for your entire life.”

  Suddenly I understand, all at once, what she means to do. She wants to turn this into a case against Killian. She wants to use me to get Lina back. To pretend he acted inappropriately when we got together, like he was just some older man creeping on a younger woman at the party.

  I feel sick to my stomach.

  But Tricia, she’s just smiling away. “You see how wrong it is, don’t you, what he did to you?” she says, voice lowering now, as if we’re sisters in this, as if we’re conspiring together. “You’re young, pretty, just trying to do your job… A job that involves working with children, no less. And here comes this man, who is old enough to know how to keep his hands to himself—a man with a daughter of his own, for that matter—trying to hit on you while you work?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I snap.

  “You were dressed even younger than you look, you know, in that princess gown, all dolled up…”

  My stomach churns in disgust. “Killian isn’t like that. What happened between us was between two consenting adults. Don’t twist this for your personal gain.”

  “I thought you understood what mattered, Tilly.”

  “I do.” I slam my chair back with force as I leap to my feet. Then I spin around and grab for the doorknob. “I understand exactly what matters. I need to make sure I never end up like you.” With that, I wrench open the office door and stride out.

  “You’ll be back,” she calls after me. “Once you realize that you need this job; you need me. You’ll be back here groveling. See if I give you the time of day then.”

  I let her words bounce off my back, fall harmlessly to the floor. Because at last, my eyes are wide open. I see what’s really going on here. I understand who Tricia is, better than ever.

  There have been things Killian’s mentioned. Little things, just hints, never more, because he’s a gentleman, and he knows better than to bad-mouth the mother of his child, despite what she’s turned into since they parted ways. But he’ll say things about people who abandon their families, and once he went on a tirade for so long about people who cheat that I could practically feel the air blistering.

  I understand exactly what happened now. Not the finer details, but the overall picture. Tricia cheated on Killian, and he refused to take her back after it. Now she’s trying to bring him down, to punish him for everything she lost through her own poor choices. But I won’t be like her. I won’t go down that same road.

  Tricia is so willing to blame everyone else but herself, but in the end, she’s the one who did this to herself. She chose to cheat, to abandon Killian and Lina for whatever reason seemed right to her at the time. Now she doesn’t want to deal with the consequences, so she invents a way to blame the people around her.

  I won’t be like that. I won’t be like her. I don’t care if it costs me my day job, the paychecks that keep me afloat right now. I don’t care if it means I might have to default on my next couple of loan payments. I don’t even care if she never introduces me to that artist friend of hers. I’ll find another way. I’ll find some new day job; I’ll find another artist on my own, someone who comes with no strings attached. I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done—working toward my goals and relying on myself the whole way.

  There’s no way I’m going to jump into bed with a woman like Tricia. There’s no way I’ll stab Killian in the back, make up stories about him to try and steal his daughter away, all for the sake of his ex’s revenge plot.

  My life is in my hands. The way it’s always been. I make my own decisions, and right now, I’m deciding this.

  I want Killian.

  The rest of it? Career, personal life, the bills I’ve got to pay… I’ll figure that out. I always do. But for now, in this situation, I’m choosing him. He’s worth it.

  Weirdly, I feel lighter than I have all day. Better than I have since yesterday morning when he rolled over in bed and broke the news to me about Tricia. Because now I finally see things clearly. I know the path I need to take, and it’s not bowing to some angry, hurt ex-wife’s crazy demands.

  The path I need is the one that leads me straight back to Killian’s door. So I beeline right out of the office, not even caring that Tricia trails after me shouting about how she’s removing me from the payroll, about how I need to bring my gown back right away or she’s charging me extra for that too. I ignore her as she screams about how she’ll tell her illustrator friend that I’m crazy, and she’ll have me blackballed from ever finding another illustrator in the publishing world again.

  I ignore it all, slam my car door shut over the sound of her yells, and speed out of the parking lot.

  As I do, I hit Killian’s number on speed dial.

  14

  Killian

  I slump at my desk, forehead propped i
n my hands. The words on my computer screen are all blurring together, a meaningless jumble of symbols that don’t make sense or matter to me right now.

  All I can think about is her.

  The look on her face when I told her I loved her. A look like I was tearing her apart, breaking her in two. She cares about me, I know she does. I can see it in her eyes every time I look at her. But after I told her about Tricia, about her ultimatum…

  My stomach churns. And why did I say all that shit about supporting her? We’ve only been dating a few weeks, of course she doesn’t trust me yet. But I just wanted her to know, I’d never leave her high and dry, never let her take the fall for a mess I’ve created.

  It’s my fault she’s in this mess. My fault she has to deal with my crazy ex wife. My fault I didn’t look into this company before I hired her.

  But then, if I had looked into the company, if I’d known all along Tricia ran it, I never would have hired a Party Princess from her. And then I would never have met Tilly. And despite everything, despite how much my heart is aching now, and how much worse I know this could get before Tricia stops digging her heels in and trying to sabotage me at every turn… I can’t bring myself to regret it.

  Tilly is the best woman I’ve ever met. The one person who turned me around, who reminded me what falling in love could feel like. What living could feel like, when all I’ve been doing since the divorce has been existing, getting by, being there for Lina.

  To think that I could lose her, after all this… Fuck.

  Tricia must be loving this, I think bitterly, running my hands through my hair, fists balled. I shut my eyes and I see Tilly in my mind.

  Tilly, spread-eagled across my bed just a couple nights ago. Tilly, gasping as I lick and kiss and suck my way down her lithe body. Tilly, wrapping her thighs around my head as I lick her sweet, tight little pussy, as I run my hands over her perfect ass and curvy hips.

  Tilly, her eyes bright and blue and fixed on mine as she whispers how much she wants me. How much she needs me.

  Tilly, texting me silly selfies in the morning, bright eyed ones saying Woke up like this, her hair a cloud around her head. I always tell her she looks beautiful, and she laughs like she doesn’t believe it. But she is. Even first thing in the morning with her hair a mess and her eyes squinty as she adjusts to daylight, she’s gorgeous.

  I could look at her all day and never tire of it.

  But now… Now I might never look at her again.

  I shove back from my desk and storm across to the kitchenette to make myself a cup of coffee. But after the coffee maker finishes running, I find myself just standing there, staring into space, forgetting what I was here to do. Numb to the world as thoughts of her, memory after memory, flit through my mind.

  Someone touches my shoulder and I almost jump out of my skin. I turn to find Vince next to me, watching me with a frown. “Hey man, you okay?”

  “Fine,” I reply, reaching for the coffee I’d nearly left stranded, forgotten about. I duck past him to add a splash of creamer from the fridge.

  “Something up with that girl you’ve been seeing?” He raises an eyebrow.

  Vince and the other guys at the office have heard about Tilly by now, since I’ve all but completely flaked out on every work happy hour or get together since she came along, even the ones I’d normally be available for since Lina isn’t back from school until a bit later on Thursdays. I don’t give them details, but they fill in the blanks enough to make fun of me, calling me moony-eyed and pointing out how often I’m on my phone texting her in between meetings.

  To be honest, I hadn’t noticed how much I was doing it myself until they decided to point it out. Once they did, I didn’t mind. It was proof that things were going well between us. Proof that, despite how much younger than me she is, I’d finally met someone mature. A woman who doesn’t play games, who says what she means.

  Somehow I still managed to get her tangled up in my bullshit past, though. Even when I’d tried to shield her from it.

  “Hello? Earth to Flore. Do you read me, Killian?”

  I snort and roll my eyes at Vince’s antics. “Loud and clear. I’ve just got better things to worry about right now.” With that, I brush past him.

  But he bars my passage with one arm. “Well, I’m sorry to hear things aren’t all sunshine and rainbows on the home front. But if it makes you feel any better, a bunch of us were planning on checking out that new rooftop bar that opened up down in the business district. Supposed to be pretty cool, good nightlife. Lots of eye candy on display the last time we went.” He smirks.

  I roll my eyes harder. “I’ll pass on the rooftop girl ogling session.”

  “So you are still seeing this chick,” he announces.

  I let out a sigh that turns into a groan. “Not exactly,” I admit, and since it doesn’t seem like he’s going to give this up anytime soon, I start sipping on my coffee, eying him over the rim of the mug.

  “Something happen between you two?”

  “Not between us. Just between certain other unwanted parties.” I scowl, and Vince’s eyes narrow.

  “You’re joking me. That trifling crazy woman is still trying to ruin your game, huh?”

  “It’s not a game!” I shake my head, scowling. “It’s—it was getting serious. Or so I thought. Then Tricia stomped into the middle of it and ruined everything, like she always does.”

  “You have got to stop letting that woman get under your skin.”

  “I don’t give a shit about what she does to me. That’s not the issue. The problem is when she tries to take our shit out on other people—on Lina, and now on Tilly, who it turns out works for her.”

  “Hold up, the girl you’re dating works for your ex?” Vince’s eyeballs bug out of his head.

  “I didn’t know that when we started dating.” I grimace.

  “Fuck, man.” He laughs, but it’s not a real laugh. More a groan of shock. “You have some seriously shit luck.”

  “Trust me, I know,” I mutter.

  Vince huffs out a breath of air. “Well. Look. Are you serious about this girl?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?” I arch an eyebrow.

  “Then let her know.”

  “I did.” I spread my hands. “Ball’s in her court now. It’s up to her if she wants to put up with this whole Tricia mess, and I sure as hell don’t blame her if she doesn’t.”

  Vince keeps going, trying to convince me there’s no way any girl as smart as I claim Tilly is would let someone like my ex-wife push them around. But I’m not listening anymore. I try my best to tune him out as I head back to my desk, to bury myself in my work.

  The last thing I want to do right now is allow myself to hope. She’ll decide what’s best for her, and if I can’t convince her I’m the right choice, then, well…

  I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t lose her.

  The rest of the morning ticks by like that, in slow starts and fits. My phone runs out of battery before it’s even noon, because I keep refreshing it, checking and hoping against hope that Tilly will have replied to my last message to her. Finally, I ready myself to face the world, at least for long enough to grab a bite to eat. I leave my phone shut off—probably for the best, and Lina’s school has my office number on file in case any real emergencies crop up—and scoop up my jacket and my wallet.

  But as I’m turning to leave, I hear a commotion by the doors. More than a few people are glancing over at the glass-encased stairwell where our secretary works. Then I notice Vince stand and go over to push open the door.

  “Miss!” I hear our secretary, Jim, shouting. “You can’t go in there without a pass—”

  “She’s with me,” Vince shouts into the atrium, and I wonder what the hell is going on, when another figure comes bursting through those doors, into our office.

  She’s facing away from me at first, but it doesn’t matter. I’d know that shower of golden curls anywhere. Tilly whips around, and her eyes land o
n me, widen with recognition, surprise…

  Happiness.

  In spite of myself, I feel an answering smile start to spread across my face, as impossible to resist as a flower turning toward the sun. She hurries across the office toward me. It’s not too busy right now—most people already skipped out for lunch half an hour ago—but there are at least a dozen people scattered across the floor. She doesn’t seem to care.

  The second Tilly reaches me, she throws her arms around my neck, and our mouths collide. I catch her in my arms, pull her tight against me, as her lips part and close against mine, and her tongue slips into my mouth, tentative, soft, exploratory. I kiss her back hard, hot, and desperate enough to drown in her right now.

  She twists her hands into my hair, and climbs up onto the desk we’re standing beside so her face is at the same height as mine.

  Some people in the background are clapping. Distantly, I register the sound of Vince whooping at the top of his lungs. Someone else mutters to get a room, and I force myself to draw back, just a breath, just far enough to gaze down at Tilly in stunned surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” I manage, still smiling, half-laughing as I talk, unable to believe she’s really here. I can’t quite believe this is real. It’s what I’ve been hoping for, daydreaming about all day, but… “Tilly, is everything—”

  “Shut up,” she says, startling us both quiet. The laughter and catcalls around us increase in volume. Her cheeks go bright red, that delicate blush I love so much on her. But she carries on anyway, determined as ever. Because that’s who she is. My determined princess. “I have something important I need to say to you, Killian.” Her smile drips away, but mine stays put.

  No matter what she has to say to me right now, I can’t not smile, at the simple fact that she’s here. Or that she just kissed me and climbed onto a desk to make out with me in front of half the damn office. I’m grinning like a dumbass right now.

  “I should have told you this sooner,” she says, biting her lower lip. “But I’m ready now.” She holds my gaze. I could stare into those baby blues of hers forever. “I love you, Killian,” she whispers.